Wild Sign (Alpha & Omega #6)(57)

“Tag,” he said slowly. “I think you should stay with the car.”

“Watching our escape route,” said Tag, sounding a bit more Celtic than normal. “Oh, aye.”

“Magic?” Anna asked.

Charles jerked his head toward a light post. “We’re being watched—and maybe listened to.” Which wasn’t a no, she noted.

She narrowed her eyes and finally saw what he had. An extra little bump on the bottom side of the post that arched over to hold the light—camera.

“Reasonable enough,” she observed, “at a place that might have Alzheimer’s patients, and—” Her breath caught. She had been so worried about her memory lapses and the grimoires that she hadn’t actually thought about what it meant that Daniel was a relative of Carrie’s the same way Dr. Sissy Connors was the daughter of Dr. Connors Senior. Witches tended to occur along family lines. “And maybe especially a patient related to Carrie Green,” she said slowly.

If they were being watched, she couldn’t ask Charles if he thought they were being stupid for going into a place designed to keep people in, maybe even to detain witches against their will. They didn’t know if Daniel could tell them anything. Charles has thought of all of this, she told herself, and forced her shoulders to relax. All she had to do was not let him know that she hadn’t figured it out until just now.

She wished she hadn’t given the facility her real name. If this place was run by witches, that surname would alert people. Cornick was a good Welsh name, and there were doubtless hundreds of Cornick families in the US that were no relation to the Wolf Who Rules. But still . . .

In lieu of words, she reached out to Charles and stopped him when he would have walked toward the doors. He gave her a reassuring smile and covered her hand with his briefly. He didn’t think that they were in any danger he couldn’t handle. She slid her hand into the crook of his arm.

As they walked to the building, she saw that most of the windows were the kind with a metal mesh embedded in the glass, more discreet than bars but no less effective unless you were keeping in werewolves. She wondered how many of their patients were incarcerated here rather than held for treatment. Probably the same percentage of patients in any assisted living home, she thought. But the isolation of the place made it feel more like a prison than a place of healing.

Well, that and the surveillance equipment and escape-proof windows.

As if to make up for the imposing exterior, the glass-and-bronze entry would have done credit to a high-end hotel, an effect not lessened by the imposing reception desk. Anna gave their names to the young man behind the counter and told him they were there to see Daniel Green. He checked a list and gave them a bright smile.

“Dr. Underwood left a note that he wanted to escort you. Normally you would not be allowed in to see him at all. Daniel’s one of our special guests—that means that he can be obstreperous if he is in a mood.”

There was a hesitation before “obstreperous.” Anna would have bet that the word he’d been going to say was “dangerous.”

“It’s not Daniel’s fault.” The young man looked suddenly serious. “Dementia is a terrible thing—scary for those who suffer from it.”

The last few days had given Anna a visceral understanding of how frightening having undependable memories was. “Of course,” she said.

“If you’ll wait a moment, I’ll go get him.”

Dr. Underwood did not keep them waiting long. He was short, slender, and bearded, with warm blue eyes and a Mickey Mouse tie. He saw Anna’s glance and laughed.

“My daughter gives me ties,” he said. “She is eight. Yesterday’s tie was from Frozen. One of our clients sang ‘Do You Want to Build a Snowman?’ to me every time I checked in on her.” It didn’t sound as though it particularly bothered him.

“Daniel enjoys the gardens in the morning,” he said. “He’s more lucid outside; we find that is true of many of our clients. Indoors can feel a little alien, with strange noises and smells, but a garden is always filled with familiar things.”

He led them down a too-shiny-floored hall full of oversized solid-looking doors, most of which had dead bolts that locked the patients inside. The air smelled of cleaners that burned Anna’s sensitive nose, so it could give her no further hint of what lay beyond those doors.

“Daniel was as cheerful as he gets this morning,” Dr. Underwood said. “He had a good breakfast. I have every expectation you’ll have a good visit. But if you don’t mind, I will hover in view but out of earshot to make sure. Afterward, we should talk about Daniel’s future.”

“Of course,” Anna murmured, wondering how they were going to manage that part. Maybe she’d just give him the check and Leslie’s phone number and tell him to take it to the FBI.

The gardens were lower than the building, so when they stepped outside, Anna got a fair look at the whole thing. Five or six acres, she judged, completely enclosed by what looked to be a ten-foot wall. Hedges and the natural rise and fall of the land had been utilized to create small pockets of privacy. In the center of the garden was a good-sized water feature with a waterfall on one end and a natural-looking (other than it being aboveground) pond on the other end.

Charles gave her a thoughtful look as she started down the stairs ahead of him, following Dr. Underwood. She wasn’t sure what that look was about, but she thought she was missing something. She tried to figure out what that could be.